


Humanity

by shelter



Series: Evenings without echoes [3]
Category: Claymore
Genre: Gen, Implied drinking games, One Shot Collection, Other, Post-Series, Problematic what-if on warriors' relations with humans after the fall of the Organisation, Purpose, Warrior-Human relations
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-20
Updated: 2016-08-20
Packaged: 2018-08-09 22:18:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,766
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7819402
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shelter/pseuds/shelter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Post-series. Dietrich wakes up alone without her clothes in another person’s bed. She doesn’t remember how she ended up here.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Humanity

**Humanity**

(Rated T/M for a bit of implied sex)

.

.

Dietrich wakes up alone without her clothes in another person’s bed. She doesn’t remember how she ended up here. The sheets are a wreck of dirt and sweat. Her breath stinks of wine.

This isn’t the first time this has happened, and she knows it won’t be last.

Blinking away fatigue, her pulse echoes in her temple. All she can remember are the orders from Sister Latea: she had been tracking a lone-wolf yoma south of the farming communities at Musha. She knows she went to a tavern and had a drinking game with the locals – everything else after that recedes into an uncorked bottle of wine.

She thinks, did I really drink that much? Perhaps besting everyone, except Sister Latea, at downing alcohol still wasn’t enough to compete with the men of the Musha region.

In a strobe of sunlight coming down from an open window, she sees her sheathed Claymore propped up like a sentry in the corner of the room, beside the door. Outside the window she hears livestock: cow moaning, the chatter of poultry, and the steps of horses.

She gets up, finds women’s clothes by the bed. Long chaste sleeves, frayed linen dress falling to the ankles – they’re not hers, but she puts them on anyway. She does her hair into her two ponytails, retrieves her Claymore and, head still throbbing, opens the door.

* * *

 

  
She enters a stable, or what looks like it. Ambivalent cattle in the corner, a pot simmering in the centre and a boy – or, a young man – adding chunks of meat to it.

“Good morning, Miss,” he says.

“Peace be to you,” she says. “Where am I?”

“Didn’t my father tell you when he brought you back last night?”

Dietrich tries to remember, but the effects of wine clench her head. His father? A man? She remembers at least five men from last night, and at least one woman, and toasts, wine and –

None of them seemed that old.

She blinks again. “Where is he?”

“Who?”

“Your father.”

The young man shrugs, returns to his mechanical tear-and-drop action. She sees his hands are slippery with the dead animal’s blood.

Only when she moves towards the door does he react.

“I would not go out there, if I were you,” he says.

“Why?” she almost raises her arms to her Claymore. She doesn’t want to seem ready to fight. So she tries reasoning: “I’m supposed to be tracking yoma.”

He laughs. Or tries to.

“I can guess that. But you should stay inside first. Rest. Have some food.”

She wonders how she ended up here, with a young man stirring the mud-coloured soupy sludge tinged with a stream of red. Ash flickers from the fire and dusts his face. When he’s done, she collects some of the meat – still red and watery – and dumps some on a plate. Her head hurts and, not knowing what else to do, Dietrich accepts

Blood fills the gaps between her teeth as she takes her first bite. The soup tastes like stale rainwater. But when she sees the young man swallowing chunks direct from the pot, she decides to finish her portion.

“You’re from Rabona, aren’t you Miss?”

“We are based there.”

“We?”

“The warriors who keep the peace.”

“The lady knights who kill monsters?”

“Yes.”

“No yoma here.”

“Nice of you not to call me a silver-eyed witch.”

“Witches kill children, bring bad luck and ruin families.”

“Uh huh.”

“No yoma here, Miss. Haven’t been any for years.”

As they sit across each other eating, she hears noises from outside: a woman’s loud wail, followed by echoing voices and a thump on the side of the house. The commotion causes her to start, spilling a dollop of soup on the lap of her dress. Her head beats in pain as the thump returns again and again.

“What was that?”

The young man scrapes the bottom of the pot. Somebody shouts, and then a fist hammers the door. Then there’s a woman’s voice again, much louder this time.

“I should see what’s outside.”

“There’s no yoma outside.”

“I just want to get to the source of this commotion.”

The young man looks up. “I think you are the source.”

* * *

 

  
She opens the door. Light cuts into her vision. It blinds her for a moment, amplifying the ache in her temples. When things stabilise, she sees how beautiful the land is. Faded gold fields stretch as far as she can see, interrupted by strips of green trees in windbreaks. A black spray of slow-moving cattle perch on the horizon. Mathematically straight squares of crops dissect hills. A man on a teal horse watches her from the nearest tree, his eyes a deep wash of blue.

On her left, a woman restrains another hysterical woman, who screams at her:

“You witch! You whore! You piece of filth!”

Dietrich looks back the door she just came through. There, the young man stands. He’s either waiting for instructions or obstructing her way back in. Traces of meat hang on his lower lip. He crosses his arms and shrugs.

“You think because you got a sword I’m afraid of you ?”

“I don’t understand –”

The woman breaks free of her companion. In two steps she covers the distance between her and Dietrich and punches her in the face.

Dietrich feels the hard bone of the knuckle hit the upper row of her teeth. She falls, pain blooming in her mouth.

“Just because you kill yoma doesn’t mean you can take our men!”

Feet clutter the dusty ground. A crowd gathers. But no one intervenes. Dietrich tries to get up. Then a fat toad of spittle hits her in the eye. Followed by a kick to the chest.

“Screaming like an animal with my husband in my wedding bed! And you dare to wear my clothes!”

Dietrich blinks to regain her composure.

“Aren’t we poor enough for you already, witch?”

When she finally manages to get to her feet, Dietrich realises the woman has drawn a shearing knife. As the crowd yells, the woman takes a swipe and another. Dietrich dodges one, two – but misjudges the third –

“Enough!”

“Stop it!”

“She brought dishonour on my family!”

“She’s from Rabona! She’ll bring an army down on us!”

“The hell with Rabona!”

When the sharp pain from the cut finally goes, Dietrich moves fast enough to disarm her attacker. She seizes the open blade and chucks it away. The assembled crowd falls into hush, as she catches the woman’s arm.

The woman tenses, muscles tightening. Dietrich knows that she could snap it in a moment, to repay her for the wound in her ribs.

Instead Dietrich takes a deep breath, releases her and walks away.

When someone begins tossing stones, she runs as fast as the dress allows.

* * *

 

  
She runs until she’s breathless, walks until the pain returns. She stops until she can breathe without pain. Then she doubles back.

As she trudges, she thinks this is the kind of situation Sister Latea warned her about. A messy mix of her own judgement and the nature of the humans she’s supposed to protect screwing up things.

“Humans are not a means to an end,” Sister Latea would say, pausing with the patient reservation of someone who’s been around humans for years.

“But?”

“They’re transactional. Thinking only of what they can get out of something.”

Sister Latea’s words roll over her conscious thought. She thinks of her now, the statuesque glare of her non-eyes, like a perfectly still pool, framed by the dark boundary of her veil. She can still feel the unnatural sensation of her Sister Latea’s pale, scrubbed out pupils monitoring her every move.

“With humans, everything’s about giving and taking,” she would say, “To be among them, you learnt to play their games.”

“So why the hell are we doing this huh?”

“Our duties don’t change.” Sister Latea would sigh and turn away “They don’t pay us. We don’t charge them. With the Organisation gone, they’re no longer clients.

“We take guardianship of them. Because we’re stronger. Remember that.”

She didn’t think she needed Sister Latea to teach her how to live her post-Organisation life. But she couldn’t imagine bleeding from a human-inflicted wound, along a featureless plain, far from Rabona.

Here, all the farms look the same. Lone houses squat on the crests of repetitive hills, the swaying stalks of maize and barley mingling with the too-blue sky. But she remembers the windbreak, a swell of green against the gold. She heads to it.

Dietrich is within sight of the house when she collapses into a shallow irrigation ditch, pain slicing through her senses. She lies half-submerged in the cloudy green water before she finds enough strength to throw her Claymore on dry land. Gingerly, she crawls out to the closest tree.

Beyond the cover of the windbreak, the house sits on a low rise, looking deserted. The man with the horse and the loitering cattle are gone. A thin ribbon of smoke slips from the ruined chimney. That boy must be boiling his soup again, she thinks.

But she has a problem: she’s still bleeding. She tears the dress at the wound, looks at the cut. An incision, not deep, but hurting like hell. Maybe a punctured rib or a torn vessel. In this heat, the wound will turn septic. The pain is like another stab wound, falling deep into her body.

Yes, she knows, she could heal herself. But she’s exhausted and might take some time – if she doesn’t go into shock first.

Dietrich tries to laugh. Such waste, she thinks, to survive the fall of the Organisation, the great hunts and the founding of a city-state only to die from a human’s blunt dagger in a field far from home. All because she decided to sleep with one of them. Sister Latea would definitely be amused.

“I’m not dying here,” she says aloud.

She moves her hands over the wound, channels her yoki. She hasn’t needed to do this for years and hopes it won’t attract that yoma she’s supposed to be tracking. She feels yoki tickling her fingers. Pain flares. The humidity is wet against her face. It gets harder to keep her thoughts focused.

She tries for a third time. An explosion of agony. And the trees and fields turn into dark fog.

* * *

  
"So you're still here."

Dietrich wakes to a warm shadow blocking her view. As her vision clears, she sees it's the young man from the house.

"You again?"

"I knew something was causing the cattle to start."

She rubs her eyes and tries to sit up, but fails. The smarting wound at her ribs still hurts.

"That looks bad," the young man says. "Wait here."

The young man disappears into the trees. The only clue that tells her she's been out for long is the failing light. Sunset turns the sky the colour of infected flesh.

She blinks hard to stay awake. A grazing cow comes up from behind her and pokes its nose into her cheek.

"Go away," she says.

The cow startles as the young man returns. He's carrying different bundles that she can't really make out. The first thing he does is to dump a bucket of water on her.

"Hey!"

"You smell worse than livestock," he says.

She parts her wet hair and wipes water from her eyes. As she does so, she feels the young man's arms like bars underneath her armpits. She allows him to move her, propping her up against the trunk of a tree.

She watches him return to his bundles, where he produces a pot of something steaming. He deposits it into her hands and tells her to eat.

It's the same food from the morning. But it tastes better: the meat is less bloody and there are rocky chunks of dried vegetables in it. She eats. The dense gravy of dubious meat and stew courses down her throat, a warm slug falling into her stomach.

While she eats, he dresses the wound. She finds his fingers surprisingly careful and cautious for someone who had no other motion save tearing meat apart.

He picks fragments of dirt from the wound and causterises it with a hot paste that she thinks looks like what she just ate.

She bites her lips as her vision spins.

"Sorry. I forgot to tell you about that."

She waves away his apology. She shuts her eyes to keep back tears of pain as he lathers the boiling paste on the wound and coats it with a blanket of ash. Even in pain, she feels touched by this young man's delicate method.

"Why are you helping me?" she asks.

"You're on family land."

"So?"

"You're a stranger on my land. You're entitled to our hospitality."

"Your mother stabbed me."

"That's her. Not me."

Humans and their mysterious traditions and practices, Dietrich thinks. Can't live without them.

"How is your mother?"

"She'll survive."

"And your father?"

"Are you planning on seducing him again?"

"You give me too much credit."

"He told us you started everything."

"I'm no harlot."

"I know."

"You do?"

"My family's full of liars."

"Oh?"

"Not the first time this has happened."

"Right."

"Just the first time with a silver-eyed warrior."

The young man shrugs. Dietrich finishes the pot of stew. She's given up on trying to understand these humans and their complicated relationships.

When she's done, he gives her something to drink, says it will help her recover. It's bitter and has brown leaves it in, but she finishes it anyway.

"People say silver-eyed warriors can heal themselves even when they're dying. Is it true?"

"Most of the time."

"Most of the time?"

"If the injury isn't fatal and if the warrior's strong enough."

"Oh."

With food in her stomach, she pulls herself up to sit. The sun has fallen below the hills. In the last light, the young man turns into a indistinct shadow against the landscape.

"I hope you're not in trouble for helping me."

"I can look after myself."

"Of course."

"What about you?"

"I'll live."

"And then?"

"I'll get out of here. Find the yoma I'm tracking."

"That's it?"

"Yes."

"Nothing for me to remember you by?"

"How about a 'thank you'?"

"That's it?"

It's already so dark that she can't see him. But she can sense him standing close, the warmth of his body burning from him in waves. The house has a fire going, a shock of white light.

When he steps closer, Dietrich knows where this is going and what he wants. She could refuse, or take her sword and defend herself. The thought of him taking advantage of her injury sickens her. She knows there are considerations: his help, the trouble she's caused to his household, her injury, and what Sister Latea told her about respecting humans.

She thinks of these things - interactions and favours and acts and deeds, the give and take that connects her and her kind to humankind.

Thinking like a human already, she thinks. Was this what she thought of last night that led to this mess?

Without disturbing her wound, she undresses.

"This what you wanted?"

"I can't see anything."

"I'm here."

In the blackness, she guides him with her voice and touch.

She looks above at the crystalline stars, thinking about the tenderness of his fingers.

 

* * *

  
Dietrich wakes alone without her clothes on a bed of grass on the opposite side of the treeline. A sheen of dew and sweat swabs her body. Her dress is gone. Her wound bubbles with pain as she tries to stand.

Dawn threatens to ignite the edges of the sky, the horizon is already bruised blue at its edges. The dark shapes of cattle dot the fields. The fire from the house has died. The morning is completely still.

She finds her Claymore by the roots of a tree. A frayed linen cloak lies beside it.

She thinks of the young man, stealing away in the night with his mother's dress and leaving her this shapeless thing. She isn’t sure of these humans, isn’t sure how to read them, or to trust them as much as she would like to. She doesn't know what to think. If Sister Latea could see me now, she thinks.

But she abandons that. She’s wasted enough time. She still has a rogue yoma to track.

Before dawn throws sunlight on everything, she dons the cloak and Claymore. She disappears into the closing shadows, leaving her humans behind.

 

  _END_

 

**Author's Note:**

> This story was supposed to be a character study of Dietrich, but I got carried away with the context and the conversations. It's been through so many revisions that I can't remember what my original idea was. There was probably something about the changing dependency between the warrior class of Claymores and humans after the Organisation's fall, and how it affected the warriors in their duties. But unfortunately I'm not as good a writer as before, so even if I wanted the revised version of the story to show that, it got lost in translation.
> 
> I see conflict in everything. Probably the side effect of my culture & upbringing. But conflict always has an underlying meaning and/or purpose. Which is why this story found it's way out. 
> 
> Let me categorically state that I'm NOT happy with this story. In the planned anthology I'm working on, this is by far the weakest, most garbled in terms of its message and... exploitative (for lack of a better word). I will probably return to rework it, or write another story with Dietrich as the central character.
> 
> Currently working on a Raftela story for the 4th story. And my it's difficult to flesh out these minor characters without resorting to the 'tragic backstory' trope.


End file.
